Don Rodriguez expostulated at this. "My love, how can you say so? Diego is a proper caballero--the properest in Madrid, I dare swear. His air, his carriage----" "Very exquisite, señor. I have never seen him otherwise, and I fear I never shall." "I do not profess to understand what you would be at, señora," said Don Diego, with a half-laugh. She got up out of her chair. "How should you? You should live in a painting, Diego; a painting of soft lines and graceful attitudes. I doubt the Chevalier would never stay still in it." She went out, chuckling to herself. Father and son looked at each other. "Your mother has a--has an odd twist in her humour," said Don Rodriguez weakly. "My mother, señor," said Don Diego tartly, "likes to be thought enigmatic. She said that Dominica would be present, but will she?" He opened the little comfit box that he carried, and put a sweetmeat into his mouth. "If she consents it will be for the first time." "Leave her to your mother. She--she is a very remarkable woman, Diego." "Likewise is my cousin a very remarkable self-willed chit," said Don Diego. He licked his fingers and shut up the box. "She is as cold as ice," he said impatiently. "Bewitched. A scornful piece that wants schooling." "Bethink you, it is very soon after Don Manuel's death for her to be thinking of bridals," Don Rodriguez said excusingly. "You would maybe do well to deal gently." "Do I not deal gently?" The sneer was clearly marked now. "And while I stay supplicating she but grows the colder, and every caballero in the town is eager to hazard his luck. She is like to be off with another if this continues. Or her uncle de Tobar will take a hand in the game, and try to get her for that overgrown fool, Miguel. Oh yes, she hinted she might write to him! A vixen!" Don Rodriguez murmured a vague expostulation. "I don't think it, I don't think it. She has no mind to wed yet, and your mother hath an eye to her. Belike you do not go well to work with her." "I will use her more hardly if this coldness endures," said Don Diego. His eyes glinted, and Don Rodriguez looked away. "Leave it to your mother," he advised feebly. "It is early yet to despair." There was some excuse for Don Diego's ill-humour. He had a very pretty cousin, heiress to great wealth, marked clearly by heaven to be a bride for him, and the devil was in it that the girl must needs flout him. Such a thing had never happened to him before. He was at first incredulous, then sullen. As for Dominica, there was a good reason for her refusal to fall in with the wishes of her family, had they but known it. How should a maid think of Diego who had lain trembling in Beauvallet's arms?